


Bounce Back

by jeannigrace



Series: In Between [1]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Abby deserves more love, Abby loves girls and ghosts, And Soup, F/F, First Date, Pre-Movie(s), and I love her so I'm giving her that love, so there's a soup pun just for her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9426857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannigrace/pseuds/jeannigrace
Summary: It's been three years, two months, two weeks, and one day since Abby last saw Erin.  She can't count the hours, because she doesn't know when, exactly, Erin left.  She knows it was Tuesday.  But it's been three years, two months, two weeks, and one day, so she's fine now.  Abby is fine now.Abby goes on her first real date since Erin left her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Totally unbeta'd, any mistake are my own.

It's been three years, two months, two weeks, and one day since Abby last saw Erin. She can't count the hours, because she doesn't know when, exactly, Erin left. She knows it was Tuesday. She knows she came home to find their apartment empty. She knows Erin hadn't shown up at the interview in Michigan over the weekend, and then she'd apologized on Monday and Abby had forgiven her, and they'd flown home to New York and then Erin had kissed Abby goodbye when she left for work, and Abby had texted Erin at her lunchbreak but when Erin didn't text back, she'd just figured Erin was teaching, but then she'd gotten home and all of Erin's things were gone. There was a note on the fridge and a sweater folded neatly on the bed, and Abby had sobbed for hours.  
But it's been three years, two months, two weeks, and one day, so she's fine now. Abby is fine now. 

She pulls back a piece of hair from the front and pins it on the side of her head. So what if this is her first actual date in those three years? So what if she's still pretty new to her job at Higgins? So what if she's still new to her apartment? (Half the size of the one she'd shared first with Erin, then with Amelia from Jamaica a kind but quiet roommate). So what? 

She takes her glasses off, runs a brown eyeliner across her upper lid, swipes on some mascara and settles the glasses back on her face. From across the room her laptop chirps. An incoming video call from her little sister. Abby chews her lip then clicks accept. 

“Hey sis!” Beatrice's voice never sounds right over a computer. “You look nice. Hot date?” She chuckles. When Abby doesn't answer Beatrice moves in closer to the webcam. “Do you have a date and didn't tell me?” Abby still doesn't answer, fiddling instead with her shirt. “Oh my god. Abigail Leslie Yates why didn't you tell me you had a date?”

“Hey, only Mom gets to use my middle name.” Abby shakes her pointer finger at the screen. Beatrice waves her hand dismissively.

“Who is she? Where'd you meet her? What's she look like?” Beatrice cradles her chin in her hands. 

“Her name is Anna, she's a nurse, and I met her at a book signing. She also likes paranormal studies, apparently.” She picks up three lipsticks and holds them up to the webcam. “Red, pink, or like a nude pink?”

“Red for a date. Duh.” 

Abby opens up the red tube, swipes a little on the back of her hand and holds it up to the webcam.

“You know what, Abs, that's a terrible shade. Toss that out and let me see the others.” She wipes the red off with a tissue before it has a chance to stain, swatches both of the others, and shows Beatrice. “Next time I'm in the city we've really gotta go to Macy's and find you a good color.” 

“Bea.”

“I'm serious, Abs.” She bites into a cookie and chews for a minute. “Go with the one closer to your fingers. The nude pink. It fits you better.” 

Abby wipes the swatches off and grabs a compact mirror. She slides the lipstick gently across her lips, presses them together, then blots off any excess. “Look ok?”

“Yeah, you look great. What's this Anna look like?”

Abby settles into her desk chair. “She's a little taller than you, black hair, gorgeous brown eyes. She's got a little beauty mark on her cheek that's just the cutest thing I've ever seen.” She checks her face in the compact mirror. “It's the first actual date I've been on since...” She lets the sentence hang. 

“Yeah. I've been waiting for this.” Beatrice clears her throat. “Are you nervous?”

“A little but,” Abby glances around the room, “I mean it's been three years, I'm fine now.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Who cares, right? She's probably married with babies by now.” 

Beatrice's face grows serious. 

“Don't tell me anything, Bea. I know you're still friends on facebook. I really don't want to know.” Abby really wants to know.

“I wouldn't tell you even if you did,” Beatrice says. “So, where are you guys going? What are you doing?” She picks up another cookie. “These are the shit by the way, who'd you say made them?”

“One of my freshmen, sweet kid, gonna run NASA one day as long as I can get her a scholarship to some place decent. Did I show you the picture of her baby?” Abby reaches across the desk for her phone. 

“Don't change the subject. Where are you and Anna going?”

Abby sets her phone on the desk. “Her friend is having an art show in Chelsea.” Abby reaches back to the dresser for her favorite earrings. “So we're going to see that.” She clasps the studs into place then takes off her regular watch. “I just, I hope that this goes better than all the women I've hit on in bars.” 

“Abs, I gotta tell you something. You're my sister so I'm trusting you're gonna listen to me.” Beatrice sighs heavily. “Every time you've hit on a woman in a bar and then gone home alone, at least the times I've seen, it's not been because she didn't like you. You tank these...interactions. You bring up Her, or you make eyes at somebody else, or you start talking about soup to the point that no one wants to spend any more time with you.”

“Soup is a food of the gods!”

“And it's not exactly a topic that's gonna get you laid.”

“Your honesty is broth taking, Bea.” 

Beatrice glares into the webcam. “A soup pun Abs? Seriously? Come on.” 

Abby's phone beeps and she glances down. “I've gotta go, Bea, Anna's downstairs. I'll text you later to let you know how it goes.” 

“You'd better!”

“Bye.” Abby shuts the laptop, takes one last glance at herself in the mirror, then grabs her purse and heads downstairs. 

 

Anna is radiant in a red silky button up shirt, black pencil skirt, and low black boots. She looks so good Abby has to hold the railing as she walks down her own stoop. “Hey.” Anna gives her a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek. She chuckles and wipes at Abby's cheek. “Sorry, got a little lipstick on you.” 

“You look amazing.” 

“You do too.” Anna offers Abby her arm, and Abby links through. “So, turns out, the gallery space housing Aaron's show is rat infested, so they're closed down until they can get an exterminator.”

“Shit.” Abby's mind starts racing through other places they can go.

“So I thought maybe just a couple drinks? I know this bar not too far from here, it's a little seedy but the cocktails really blow your socks off.”

“Okay, sure.” Abby lets Anna lead and they chatter away about work. Anna about the hospital administration, Abby about the students. 

“I loved my professors when I was in nursing school,” Anna says, leading Abby down a street she rarely walks. “I had this one, loca but so smart. She taught us how to stitch up a wound, and she could do it with her eyes closed.” Anna opens the door of the bar and holds it for Abby. 

“Where did you go to nursing school?” They find a table and set their bags down. 

“SUNY Downstate. My little sister's there now in med school, actually.” Anna motions for Abby to sit. “I'll get the drinks.” She disappears up to the bar and Abby's phone chirps. Beatrice.

__

_Hey sis, going well?_

Abby sends back a smiley face and puts the phone back in her bag. Anna brings back a couple of beers and two shots. “I didn't know what you liked so I just picked.” 

“Oh it's fine,” Abby says. “I'm very flexible.” Anna smirks and Abby laughs. “I didn't mean...you know what I meant.” 

Anna chuckles. “Yeah, I know what you meant.” That mischievous look doesn't leave her eyes, though. “So, tell me a little more about you.” She takes a sip from her beer. 

“Well, I'm from Michigan, I have six younger siblings, and my mother's a doctor.” She takes a sip from her own beer. “I teach some terrible kids and some great ones, and I once flew on the same plane as John Stamos.” 

“Was he as hot in person as he was on tv?”

“Mostly he really needed a shave.” 

Anna laughs. “What about your Dad?”

Abby frowns, “Helicopter accident.” Anna clasps her hand. 

“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to bring up anything so hard as that.”

Abby shakes her head. “It's been almost twenty years. I'm fine.” She runs her thumb over Anna's. “What about you?”

“Not much to tell. I'm boring, really. Grew up here in Brooklyn, my parents are both teachers, I have a younger sister and a younger brother, and I usually work graveyard shift. Oh, and I love cryptids.” 

“Are you more of a bigfoot or a mothman aficionado?” Abby takes another pull from her beer.

“Well, it started with my abuela's stories about el chupacabra stealing animals from her family's farm, so I guess I'm mostly into that. But I have a cousin in Jersey, swears the Jersey Devil pounded his car.” 

Abby leans in. “That's incredible!”

“Nah, he's just an idiot. His car's been a piece of shit since he bought it, no creatures involved.” She grins and picks up her shot. “You ready for this?” 

Abby sets her beer to the side and they clink shot glasses. The vodka burns going down and Abby pulls a face that sets Anna into a fit of giggles. 

“Oh man, I wish you'd told me it was vodka. I hate that.”

“Sorry,” Anna says in between laughs. “I just figured you were more a vodka girl.” She slaps her knee and wipes tears from her face. 

“I'm mostly a beer drinker, actually. My ex was a vodka girl, so.” Oops. “I didn't mean to bring her up.” 

“No, that's alright. How long's it been?” Anna sets their empty shot glasses to the side.

“A little more than three years. We were together from sophomore year of college up through grad school and I thought she was my one.” Abby cradles her beer in both hands and looks down at her lap. “She just left. One day I came home and all her stuff was just gone.”

Anna scowls. “That's awful. She didn't even have the ovaries to tell you to your face?”

Abby shakes her head. “No.” 

“I had a girl who ghosted on me once. She just stopped texting me back. I guess I took her home to meet the family too soon.” She shrugs. “Her loss.”

“Yeah, her loss.” Abby takes another drink of her beer. “So, what do you think about ghosts?”

“I think if something survives after death, then hospitals should be swarming with ghosts. But I haven't seen any. Not even on graveyard shifts.” Anna shrugs.

“Oh. Well, if the barrier is strong at the hospital sites then there really wouldn't be any reason for ghosts to particularly haunt the hospital. And most haunt a place special to them, so the hospital probably wouldn't be their first choice anyway. See, the energy signatures are strongest at places like their homes, their jobs, even places of worship.” Abby moves aside the beer and fishes a pen out of her bag. “See, the barrier is strong in most places, but not impenetrable, and some spirits are stronger than others too.” Anna sits back further in her seat.

Abby draws out calculations and diagrams on the napkin. She keeps talking, hands flying as she tries to demonstrate how a ghost can slip through the porous portions of the interdimensional barrier. And then.

And then Abby's hand knocks over Anna's beer, spilling it all over her. “Oh god, I'm so sorry!” Abby grabs the other napkin and presses it to Anna's shirt. “I'm so sorry.” 

Anna stands. “It's okay, I'm gonna go try to clean this up.” She takes herself and her bag to the bathroom. Abby grabs a few more napkins from the bar, cleaning up the spilled beer from the table and Anna's chair. 

“At least the bottle didn't break,” she mutters, sopping up liquid. 

Anna comes back from the bathroom mostly dry. “I've gotta go home and change out of this so I can get it clean. This was fun. I'll call you.” She kisses Abby's cheek, puts cash on the table for both of their drinks, and leaves. Abby stands by the table for a few minutes, gathers the cash, and pays the bartender. 

“Better luck next time,” he says. Abby waves as she goes out the door.

 

Anna never calls.

**Author's Note:**

> Beatrice also makes an appearance in my previous work 23 Emotions. Thanks for reading!


End file.
